James McNaught’s badges say ‘Cancer on board’ instead
A cancer patient has designed a new ‘Baby on board’-style badge to help people like him get a seat on busy Tube services.
James McNaught has spent three months using London Underground to get between his home in Kentish Town and University College Hospital to receive radiotherapy treatment for his throat cancer.
Due to his treatment, he could not speak and struggled to find a seat as he was not visibly unwell. Due to the prescribed morphine he had been given, he appeared as though drunk on the tube.
James explained: “When I got onto the Tube, I kind of got the feeling people were thinking I was a junkie. It was embarrassing and difficult. I just huddled up in the corner and hoped no one was looking at me too much.”
His badges which say ‘Cancer on board’ allow cancer patients to be given priority seats on tube journeys. He has made 100 badges and left them in hospital waiting rooms for other cancer patients to pick up and try out.
Transport for London have expressed interest in the idea and will be discussing it with James further, according to the Evening Standard.